Disability Studies

Disability studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines disability as a social, cultural, political, and historical phenomenon rather than solely a medical condition, analyzing how societies construct, exclude, and include people with impairments. It grew out of the disability rights movement and challenged the dominance of the medical model. Michael Oliver, drawing on the Union of the Physically Impaired Against Segregation, developed the social model of disability, which distinguishes impairment from disability as the disadvantage created by social barriers. Vic Finkelstein, Colin Barnes, and Paul Abberley contributed to British materialist approaches, while Irving Zola and Harlan Hahn shaped American minority group perspectives. Erving Goffman’s Stigma examined spoiled identity, and Talcott Parsons’s sick role was criticized for portraying disability as deviance. Tom Shakespeare and Nick Watson argued for a more nuanced account that recognizes the lived experience of impairment, and Rosemarie Garland-Thomson developed the concept of normate and the study of staring. Robert McRuer’s crip theory and Alison Kafer’s political and relational model brought queer and feminist insights. Disability intersects with gender, race, and class. Disability studies remains central to research on inequality, access, identity, welfare, and human rights.